Hundreds of soccer fans crowd Jerusalem mall: ‘Death to Arabs!’

We’ve missed this and everyone is talking about it: a massive anti-Arab gathering that took place in Israel on Monday. Chanting “Death to Arabs,” hundreds of Beitar soccer fans crowded into a mall in Jerusalem after their team won a match and what spilled out …words escape me:

When a group of fans started to heckle and spit on Palestinian women dining with their children in the food hall, the centre’s Arab cleaning staff rushed to their defence and chased the fans off. But moments later, the fans returned, and started to attack the Arab staff.

“They [the fans] caught some of them and beat the hell out of them,” Yair, the Jewish owner of a bakery in the shopping centre, told Israel’s Haaretz newspaper. “They hurled people into shops, and smashed them against shop windows. … One cleaner was attacked by some 20 people, poor guy.” The brawl might have turned deadly, but food hall staff refused to respond to fans’ demands for knives and sticks. It was only when police arrived 40 minutes later the situation was brought under control.

“I’ve been here many years and I’ve never seen such a thing,” Haaretz quoted Gideon Avrahami, Malha’s director, as saying. “It was a disgraceful, shocking, racist incident; simply terrible.”

The police defended its failure to make any arrests, saying it had received no complaints from any of the public, a response that drew immediate derision. “No complaints and no arrests. Does this mean riots against Arabs in malls is acceptable behaviour in Israel?” tweeted Joseph Dana, an Israeli blogger.

Shmulik Ben Rubi, a Jerusalem police spokesman, later told The Independent the police would investigate the incident, which might lead to arrests.

After 40 minutes the police arrived.

One commenter at Haaretz noted “if it was skinheads beating Jews the whole world would know about this. ” Joseph Dana and others are questioning the implications of why there have been no arrests.

Meanwhile, amongst the Israeli media only Haaretz newspaper published a report about this incident – even though it occurred five days ago. One would think that a major race riot in Jerusalem’s largest shopping mall, patronized by Jews and Arabs alike, would garner some significant local media attention. But no.

More shocking and insidious is the fact that, even though the riot was recorded by the Malha shopping centre’s CCTV cameras, no-one has been arrested. Why not? Well, said the police, because no-one filed a complaint.

Okay, let’s try a little thought experiment here. Imagine that a few hundred Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel rioted at the upscale Ramat Aviv mall in northern Tel Aviv. Imagine that they were fans of the Arab soccer team Bnei Sakhnin, that they waved team jerseys and scarves as they chanted “death to Jews” in Arabic and cursed and spat at some nice middle class Jewish women sipping cappuccinos with their children and sharing pains au chocolat at the Arcaffe. Imagine that they ran around the mall, asking for knives to attack the cleaning staff that was trying to protect the women from being attacked. And that they slammed some of those cleaners into plate-glass shop windows.

Imagine that all of this was was recorded on the Ramat Aviv shopping centre’s CCTV cameras.

And then imagine the police announcing to the media that they had not made any arrests because no-one had filed a complaint.

Yes, I’ve imagined.

There were plenty of warning signs. Remember that this is the truth about Israeli society that Max Blumenthal has sought to convey and that so many denied–stuffing his video, Feeling the Hate. Last month in Newsweek, bureau chief Dan Ephron’s story ” No Arabs Allowed” reported “Jerusalem’s favorite football team has hiring policies reminiscent of Apartheid and Jim Crow”.

Israeli football teams started hiring Arabs only in the 1970s; these days they are among the highest scorers in the league. But Beitar, the team of Israel’s capital city, has been a holdout, shunning Arabs even as it hired other non-Jewish players from abroad. “It’s hard to explain the policy as anything but racism,” says Yoav Borowitz, an Israeli journalist who writes regularly about football.

Supporters of the team have a more nuanced explanation. They say the ban is bound up with Beitar’s history and with tensions in Jerusalem, a city where Arabs and Jews live mostly in their own segregated neighborhoods (Israeli Arabs make up 20 percent of Israel’s population). Until a few years ago, most Israeli football teams were affiliated with political parties. Beitar’s sponsor was the right-wing Likud, the party now headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Though Likud was never an overtly Arab-hating party, Beitar became a magnet for right-wing extremists, who would often shout chants like “Death to Arabs” at players of opposing teams.

How much worse can it get before it gets better? And some still say it’s not apartheid– on both sides of the green line.

About Annie Robbins

Annie Robbins is Editor at Large for Mondoweiss, a mother, a human rights activist and a ceramic artist. She lives in the SF bay area. Follow her on Twitter @anniefofani

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In a Jerusalem mall it takes police 40, FORTY minutes to arrive when a riotous mob rampages? What, they wouldn’t cut their coffee break short? Or they’re used to their own teens jumping on their own furniture while shouting abuse and spitting?

I’m sure Jeffrey Goldberg and all the other liberal Zionsts will be on this case pronto. We all know of their committment to liberalism.

Tourists are going to avoid this place after seeing the video and reading the new State Department travel advisories about Jerusalem, Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza regardless of what Jeffrey Goldberg has to say about the situation. Those warnings may take a healthy bite out of Israel’s tourist business in any event. http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_5677.html

Someone at the State Department has finally decided to tell the truth about Israeli actions that hinder the ability of consular staff to offer timely assistance to U.S. citizens, the minefields in the Golan, injuries inflicted on westerners participating in demonstrations, closures and raids conducted by the Israeli security forces that effect travelers, demonstrations around Salah Ed-Din Street, Damascus Gate, Silwan, and the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, and a long list of other things that don’t make Israel or the West Bank look like very attractive travel destinations, e.g.

“Israeli security operations, including incursions in Palestinian population centers, can occur at any time and lead to disturbances and violence… U.S. citizens can be caught in the middle of potentially dangerous situations. Some U.S. citizens involved in demonstrations in the West Bank have sustained serious injuries in confrontations with Israeli security forces.”

And where is the Israel Football Association? Anything resembling this incident in Europe would get the team fined or otherwise penalised. Unless there are arrests (and stiff penalties for Beitar), the message will come across loud and clear: “Yallah yallah ya Beitar”*.

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died…

No-one complained? Really? Would that be because if a Palestinian files a complaint it is classed as a complaint from nobody, since Israelestine has decreed all non-Jews as non-persons? The football crowd are only expressing what Israeli education and indoctrination has taught them. They can attack Arabs with impunity – since conscription is a feature of their lives, where better to learn this fact than in the glorious IDF/KKK?

Absolutely disgusting. This is a perfect example of the bubble being shattered. I have friends (mostly Jewish Americans) who claim Israel does not have a race problem. Well my friends. You are wrong. Maybe video footage will make you see the truth.

It’s called the Eved Ki Yimloch (the slave shall rule) syndrom and an inevitable product of the “Jewish State” and the indoctrination of ethnic nazionalism and supremacy.

These people, mostly Arab Jews (“mizrahim”), would have been nice, pleasant and humble people living their daily lives had they stayed in Morocco, Iraq, Tunisia, etc. However, give them a flag, tell them that they are superior to Jews Arabs, that all their problems are because of Jews Arabs, and they become enthusiastic JudeoNazis, not much different from the peasants of Germany and Ukraine back in the day.

“It’s called the Eved Ki Yimloch (the slave shall rule) syndrom and an inevitable product of the “Jewish State” and the indoctrination of ethnic nazionalism and supremacy. ”

Singling out Jewish soccer hooliganism as a product of “nazionalism and supremacy” is a bit strange, being as this sort of hooliganism exists in almost every country in the world. In the UK, for example, the hooligans are far more racist and far more violent. But you wouldn’t say the UK is a “nazi and supremacist” state on accord of a few hooligans, would you?

It’s Z-i-o-c-a-i-n-e a contraction of “Zionist cocaine”. “Zioncaine” is probably a low-quality, unregulated, uninspected generic, made in the settlements. of course, it’s no secret that addicts will compromise on quality and safety when the blood level is too high in their Ziocaine-stream.

Chanting Death to Arabs is no biggie? The video didn’t capture the spitting on women with children nor the Palestinian workers who were beaten up true, but for most people a mob chanting death chants is vile enough. If the KKK did something similar in an American shopping mall do you not think it would worldwide news?

RE: “Supporters of the team [Betar] have a more nuanced explanation. They say the ban is bound up with Beitar’s history and with tensions in Jerusalem…” ~ Ephron

FROM WIKIPEDIA:

(excerpts) The Betar Movement (בית”ר, also spelled Beitar) is a Revisionist Zionist youth movement founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky. Betar has been traditionally linked to the original Herut and then Likud political parties of Israel, and was closely affiliated with the pre-Israel Revisionist Zionist splinter group Irgun Zevai Leumi. It was one of many movements and youth groups arising at that time out of a worldwide emergence of fascism.[1] Some of the most prominent politicians of Israel were Betarim in their youth, most notably Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin, the latter of whom idolized Jabotinsky.[2]…. . . The group initially praised Mussolini for his anti-communism and fascist principles, leading it to adopt the black uniform shirt of Italian fascism for a short period. Mussolini’s invasion of Abyssinia, however, was seen as “cowardly” by Betar and led them to break with him shortly after.[8]…

(excerpt)…In 1930, while [Ze’ev] Jabotinsky was visiting South Africa, he was informed by the British Colonial Office
that he would not be allowed to return to Palestine…
…During his time in exile, Jabotinsky started regarding Benito Mussolini as a potential ally against the British, and contacts were made with Italy. In 1934 Jabotinsky and the Revisionist Zionist movement set up the Betar Naval Academy in Mussolini’s Italy, which operated until 1938…

P.S. FROM TED RALL, 07/22/10: …Umberto Eco’s 1995 essay Eternal Fascism describes the cult of action for its own sake under fascist regimes and movements: “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”…
SOURCE – http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/22-1

(excerpt) Benzion Netanyahu (Hebrew: בנציון נתניהו; born Benzion Mileikowsky; March 25, 1910)[2][3] is an Israeli historian and a professor emeritus at Cornell University. He is a specialist in the golden age of Jewish History in Spain, and is known for his opus, the “Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain”. He was secretary to Ze’ev Jabotinsky, “the father of Revisionist Zionism”, and was a Revisionist leader of the Zionist Movement in the United States.He is the father of current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. . .

(excerpt)…a Daily Mail story about a race riot in Birmingham featuring rioting drunken anti-Muslim nativists who have appropriated the title of Meir Kahane’s Jewish Defense League in their own group’s name, English Defense League. The coverage features a picture of the lily-white demonstrators [EDL skinheads] proudly waving an Israeli flag. With ‘friends’ like this does Israel need enemies? . . .

P.S. MEET THE EDL: This Is England, 2006, NR, 100 minutes
Set in 1983, this semiautobiographical drama from writer-director Shane Meadows follows a lonely 11-year-old boy named Shaun as he grieves over the recent death of his father, who was killed fighting in the Falklands War. When he falls in with a gang of young skinheads, Shaun’s pain and anger make him susceptible to carrying out the group’s hateful agenda, exposing a dark side of modern Britain not often seen in the movies.
Cast: Thomas Turgoose, Andrew Shim, Stephen Graham, Kieran Hardcastle, Frank Harper, Jo Hartley, George Newton, Jack O’Connell
Netflix Availability: Streaming and DVD
NETFLIX LISTING – http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/This_Is_England/70061577This Is England Trailer HQ (VIDEO, 02:28) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXDNsPRTANw

At least “death to Arabs” is not in the Israeli Articles of Establishment (see Hamas Charter, for comparison), and at least a Jewish seller of land to Arabs will not be automatically sentenced to death (see PalAuthority’s policy about selling land to Jews).

Oh, and those who do murder Arab civilians dont get official memorials, streets and squares named after them.

Like most Israelis, you are falling for the logical fallacy of putting occupier and occupied, dispossessor and dispossessed, sovereign state and a stateless population, on the same level as two equal sides. Your prism is distorted, as it is for most Israelis, which causes you to make this preposterous comparison.

ahadha’am, so your “logical prism” justified intentional targetting of civilians under certain circumstances, for example, if the attacker is member of a “disposessed” group, then him killing civilians of the “dispossessor” side will not amount to a war crime? Yes/No answer will suffice.

All we are saying is quite simple, I hope you can understand: remove the cause of violence, then we wouldn’t have to discuss what the dispossessed is “allowed” to do and what not. Instead you are an apologist for oppression and dispossession and want to engage in debate in what the oppressed are “allowed” to do. It’s like someone breaking into his neighbor’s house and then pleading with the homeowner to abide by the law!

@ asherpat: Sort of reminds me of apartheid South Africa’s “One Settler, One Bullet” propaganda. Only they had been there a lot longer than the majority of you have been in Palestine. Trying to be a victim out of your oppression on them is so pitiful.

1-ha’am, Even if someone breaks into my house, I am not allowed to kill him, I am bound by laws to resolve the conflict. your logic suggests that Palestinian Arabs are justified to kill Israeli civilians – yes or no please? Killing civilians is a crime, when this is done for political means, this may amount to a war crime. Do you agree or disagree?

After answering, pls put the two arguments above together, do you suggest that under certain circumstances, it is OK to break laws of war?

I think you will find they may have outnumbered the Non Jewish Palestinians in the Jewish quarter which was in the center of Jerusalem’s old city, but not Jerusalem as a whole. Jerusalem is also not all of Palestine and they were not European Zionist Jews but native Palestinian Jews who detested Zionism.

In terms of land owned: From Village Statistics (Jerusalem: Palestine Government, 1945). It was subsequently published as United Nations map no 94(b) in August 1950:
Jerusalem Palestinian 84 percent
Zionist 2 percent
Public & Other 14 percent

I can show you a census by the Ottomans that shows that in 18th century, Jews outnumbered Muslims in Jerusalem. What research can you show?

You’re employing the usual hasbara talking points about “Muslims” in order to “disappear” the Arab Christian community. There always was an Arab (Muslim+Christian) majority until the Mandate era.

In any event, your claim does not hold true for the 18th Century (the 1700s). In 1625, Jerusalem came under the control of the Ibn Farukh family. They prohibited Jewish immigration to Jerusalem after some of the newly arrived Ashkenazim refused to honor their debts. Pilgrims subsequently opted for places like Safed and Tiberias instead.

Article 7 of the Hamas Charter simply says that they look forward to the eventual fulfillment of their end-times prophecy about the destruction of the Jews. Some of Israel’s Christian Zionist friends harbor exactly the same sort of sentiments. They also interpret their Book of Revelation as an end-times prophecy that won’t be fulfilled until the Jews have been destroyed.
*http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/www.thejerusalemfund.org/carryover/documents/charter.html

A well read person can spot errors in just about every Wikipedia article about international law, the Arab Israeli conflict, the history of Israel, the Zionist movement, and Palestine. Census figures of the Ottoman Empire were unreliable in the first place. That topic has been hashed and rehashed by Finkelstein and Porath. There was ample motivation for Muslims to avoid the census in order to avoid paying taxes or being conscripted into the military. During the 19th century only the Muslims were subject to the draft.

@Hostage: if you don’t fancy Wikipedia then maybe you will find MidEast Web more palatable. There your point about Muslims evading the census to avoid conscription is mentioned along with the statement that Jerusalem has had an absolute Jewish majority since about 1896.

@Hostage: if you don’t fancy Wikipedia then maybe you will find MidEast Web more palatable.

Nope. The author states:

Uncertainties in the data – Debates about the population of Palestine flourish because of the lack of good information and confusion over the meaning of census figures, and the will of partisans to distort history. Census figures of the Ottoman Empire were unreliable. Foreign residents were not counted, and illegal residents did their best to evade the census, as did people wishing to evade military services and taxes. The population figures of the British mandate were more reliable, but there was no published census taken after 1931. Mandatory figures for the period after 1931 are based on hospital and immigration records and extrapolation, it seems. Nomadic Bedouin were not counted or undercounted in both Ottoman and British censuses. Those who became settled in Palestine would then add to population figures. In studying the population of Palestine between 1800 and 1948, we must keep in mind that there was only one agreed-upon reliable census in all that time, which took place in 1931.

@Hostage, there is a Wikipedia entry about Azmi Bishara, the former parlamentarian of Knesset. As anyone who can speak Hebrew will attest, Azmi Bishara denied the existance on a Palestinian “nation” on record as you can yourself see on YouTube (just search youtube for “azmi bishara palestinian nation”), he did it non-chalantly but unambigously, that there cud be no doubt about his position.

Yet when I tried to update Wikipedia entry on him, it was edited countless times by people who are known activists and this relevant point was edited out time after time so that I dropped it, even though ititially a Wikipedia “official” has labelled the deleting edit as “vandalsim”. This expression of Bishara is still on the Hebrew entry, by the way.

So please do not rely on Wikipedia for anything controversial, is it not an unbiased medium.

Two Israeli groups have set up ‘Zionist editing’ courses with aims to alter perceptions about Israel. Photograph: David Silverman/Getty Images

Since the earliest days of the worldwide web, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has seen its rhetorical counterpart fought out on the talkboards and chatrooms of the internet.

Now two Israeli groups seeking to gain the upper hand in the online debate have launched a course in “Zionist editing” for Wikipedia, the online reference site.

… Wikipedia is one of the world’s most popular websites, and its 16m entries are open for anyone to edit, rewrite or even erase. The problem, according to Ayelet Shaked of Israel Sheli, is that online, pro-Israeli activists are vastly outnumbered by pro-Palestinian voices. “We don’t want to give this arena to the other side,” she said. “But we are so few and they are so many. People in the US and Europe never hear about Israel’s side, with all the correct arguments and explanations.”

Like others involved with this project, Shaked thinks that her government is “not doing a very good job” of explaining Israel to the world.

And on Wikipedia, they believe that there is much work to do.

… Meanwhile, Yesha is building an information taskforce to engage with new media, by posting to sites such as Facebook and YouTube, and claims to have 12,000 active members, with up to 100 more signing up each month. “It turns out there is quite a thirst for this activity,” says Bennett. “The Israeli public is frustrated with the way it is portrayed abroad.”

The organisiers of the Wikipedia courses, are already planning a competition to find the “Best Zionist editor”, with a prize of a hot-air balloon trip over Israel.

As anyone who can speak Hebrew will attest, Azmi Bishara denied the existance on a Palestinian “nation” on record as you can yourself see on YouTube (just search youtube for “azmi bishara palestinian nation”), he did it non-chalantly but unambigously, that there cud be no doubt about his position.

Of course, when “Israeli Arabs” aren’t being offered to the PA as part of a land swap and Bishara is speaking from the relative safety of Qatar, he talks about the “Palestinian people” all of the time, e.g.:

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Tuesday, Bishara said Israel’s war on Gaza was disproportionate and punishes the Palestinian people for refusing to bow to Israel’s fait-accompli in the strip.

The Israeli Central Elections Committee presented evidence to the Israeli Supreme Court and asked that Bishara be banned from running for the Knesset, because he denies the existence of a Jewish nation state (as well). But I suspect that you aren’t in such a hurry to call attention to his views on that particular subject;-)

@Hostage, so how can you believe Mr. Bishara after the two discrepant statements? In Israel, he said that “there is no Palestinian nation, it was always the south of Greater Syria”) and in Qatar, he says “Palestinian people”. Perhaps he changed his mind? Oh, I know, on the Israeli TV he was speaking under duress being bullied by the Zionists, with his family tied in the basement under a gun?

@Hostage, so how can you believe Mr. Bishara after the two discrepant statements?

I guess that I’m not easily misled by hyperbolic expressions of Pan-Arab political solidarity. I would add that I’m not the one that keeps trying (unsuccessfully) to make one-sided representations about his views in updates to Wikipedia articles.

I think you may be taking some of his statements out of context. Perhaps you are unaware of the official repression of Palestinian political views about the Jewish nature of the State under Israeli law and Israeli High Court decisions? Have you read about the attempts to imprison Palestinian MKs like Bishara and Zoabi in Israel for associating with other Arabs or the schemes to strip them and their fellow Palestinians of their Israeli citizenship and swap them in deals to annex illegal Israeli settlements?

Oh, I know, on the Israeli TV he was speaking under duress being bullied by the Zionists, with his family tied in the basement under a gun?

No, but I’m pretty certain the authorities had something like that in mind for obtaining a confession on those trumped-up charges of espionage and treason.

“those who do murder Arab civilians dont get official memorials, streets and squares named after them.”
Israel’s most honored senior stateman is Menachim Begin, who murdered 17,000 Palestinians and Lebanese, nearly all civilians, in 1982 alone. Begin has many official memorials, streets, squares, and public buildings named after him. Begin has more public memorials than David Ben-Gurion.

that Begin murdered anyone is questionable (I say “murdered” as in “unlawful killing with malicious intent”) cos he was never convicted in a court of law. Neither have any other people who have their names on Israeli streets. That Shamir was a terrorist is also questionable, but that is not the point.

Annie Robbins, please do not drop charges of “stunning hypocrisy” because the analogy of those terrorists on whose name squares are named in Palestinian Territories is Baruch Goldberg, a person who has murdered civilians with his own hands. Is there a square in Israel named after such a person? Are such persons revered and deified in Israel (officially and by the majority)? So where is the “hypocricy”?

“that Begin murdered anyone is questionable (I say “murdered” as in “unlawful killing with malicious intent”) cos he was never convicted in a court of law. Neither have any other people who have their names on Israeli streets. That Shamir was a terrorist is also questionable, but that is not the point. ”

Hitler was never convicted in the court of law and never murdered anyone. Would you grant him the same benefit of the doubt? Does any book that you have read recently refer to Hitler as “the alleged genocider of Jews”?

What about the honoring of Irgun? There is an Irgun military ribbon and Israel has also commemorated the King David Hotel bombing. The British government voiced their disapproval when this happened too.

Hitler openly called and successfully implemented a genocide and there is no denying that, except a negligible (compared to the total world community) idiots, including heads of muslim states. Begin and Israeli leaders are not considered by the world community to commit genocide, as much as you are trying to wish for that.

Talking about “conviction”, Hitler was not tried but Hitler’s henchmen WERE convicted, so the genocide nd crimes WERE proven in court, unlike the “alleged” crimes of Israeli leaders and soldiers.

Talking about “conviction”, Hitler was not tried but Hitler’s henchmen WERE convicted, so the genocide nd crimes WERE proven in court, unlike the “alleged” crimes of Israeli leaders and soldiers.

That’s the usual hasbara nonsense. The crime of genocide didn’t even exist at the time of the Nuremberg tribunal, so the Nazis were charged with committing crimes against humanity.

FYI, no one needs a Court to decide whether or not crimes have been committed. The 32 United Nations simply declared that the persons responsible for committing the atrocities during WWII would be prosecuted. See the Statement On Atrocities, Signed by President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Premier Stalin in the Moscow Declaration. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/moscow.asp

When the UN adopts statements like that about Israel’s notorious violations of international criminal law, apologists like yourself deploy lame talking points about prejudice, bias, or antisemitism. There is no doubt that the ICJ findings of fact in the Wall case included grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions (i..e. war crimes and crimes against humanity). The Court noted that Israel is under a continuing obligation to other signatories of the conventions to search for and bring before its courts persons alleged to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, grave breaches of international humanitarian law (paragraph 145(3)). So give it a rest. http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/131/1671.pdf

Begin and Israeli leaders are not considered by the world community to commit genocide

Correction: The United Nations endorsed the Moscow Declaration on WWII atrocities. The same organization of states was formalized as a result of the Moscow Conference. It subsequently endorsed a resolution on December 16, 1982 which condemned the Sabra and Shatila massacre and declared it to be an act of Genocide: See the text of resolution 37/123 Part D http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/37/123

You are implying that because Israeli leaders (and by relation, American leaders and any other ‘leaders’) have not been tried and convicted of war crimes – that they have never committed war crimes (or any crimes for that matter).

There have been attempts by solidarity activists in the UK to have Livni arrested upon landing, but the British government changed it’s laws so she couldn’t be charged.

This is political. Israel and the United States and Great Britain will never be brought before ‘the world’ and tried and convicted and it’s leaders or political-military architects executed or imprisoned.

This only happens to people who lose the war.

Your conclusion is absurd, hypocritical and typical Zionist b.s.

The UN has issued resolution after resolution condemning the illegal settlements – but nothing has stopped them from expanding. You could even say the UN does not matter (legally/morally/objectively in any sense [primarily academic sense, not forceful action]).

But that doesn’t mean Israel is in the right. It just means there is no political power to enforce the law. There was in the case of Germany, because they LOST the war.

The soccer fans do not represent the majority of Israeli’s and Jews. Nowhere in my comments did I apologize for their racists chantings . I reject their comments as I have a balanced understanding of racism, unlike yourself. There are far more Israeli’s who are dovish on peace and do wonderful things building people to people relationships, no matter who they are. If you are going to judge, then why use marginalized fanatics as your benchmark. By the way there are laws against racism in Israel and soccer fans are punished from time to time. Not enough in my opinion, but the law is in place.

“… The soccer fans do not represent the majority of Israeli’s and Jews.
… There are far more Israeli’s who are dovish on peace and do wonderful things building people to people relationships, no matter who they are.”

giladg, something wrong with your numbers; you don’t have the latest statistics on how most Israelis feel about Arabs. Here’s a small sampling from Wiki although more recent surveys in Israel show that the majority in Israel, especially the teens are very anti-Arab and in the survey conducted during the phosphorus show over Gaza. I don’t make much about the chanting by Israelis since I’ve heard much worse being chanted against Israel and America as the chanting was by about a million people, not just 500 at at football game. But I’ve never heard about 20 Arabs ganging up on an Israeli like the Israeli cowards did at the mall in this story. The Wiki numbers:

“… In 2006, a research institute poll reported that 41% of Israelis support Arab-Israeli segregation, 40% believed “the state needs to support the emigration of Arab citizens”, and 63% believed Arabs to be a “security and demographic threat” to Israel. the poll found that more than two thirds would not want to live in the same building as an Arab, 36% believed Arab culture to be inferior, and 18% felt hatred when they heard Arabic spoken.[50]

In 2007, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel reported that anti-Arab views had doubled, and anti-Arab racist incidents had increased by 26%.[64] The report quoted polls that suggested 50% of Jewish Israelis do not believe Arab citizens of Israel should have equal rights, 50% said they wanted the government to encourage Arab emigration from Israel, and 75% of Jewish youths said Arabs were less intelligent and less clean than Jews.

The Mossawa Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel reported a tenfold increase in racist incidents against Arabs in 2008. Jerusalem reported the highest number of incidents. The report blamed Israeli leaders for the violence, saying “These attacks are not the hand of fate, but a direct result of incitement against the Arab citizens of this country by religious, public, and elected officials.”[65]

In March 2009, following the Gaza War, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) drew criticism when several young soldiers had T-shirts printed up privately with slogans and caricatures that were deemed offensive to Palestinians.[66][67][67][68]

Beitar is well known for being racist, and prides itself on the fact. It refuses to sign Palestinian Israelis. So much for Israeli anti-discrimination laws, which appear to be there for PR, rather than any expectation that they will be used, not for non-Jews anyway:

Giladg: Having come across so many of your hasbarat propagandists who infest the net for many a year now I would say by reading their racist comments which they spam with – including those aimed at sweet Rachel Corrie and other western humanitarians who have lost their lives to your mammon nightmare – it is common place amongst your ideology. I have very rarely seen a moderate voice. Personally I cringe at how disturbed their psyches are.

Genocide is a process that develops in eight stages that are predictable but not inexorable. At each stage, preventive measures can stop it. The process is not linear. Logically, later stages must be preceded by earlier stages. But all stages continue to operate throughout the process.

1. CLASSIFICATION: All cultures have categories to distinguish people into “us and them” by ethnicity, race, religion, or nationality: German and Jew, Hutu and Tutsi. Bipolar societies that lack mixed categories, such as Rwanda and Burundi, are the most likely to have genocide. The main preventive measure at this early stage is to develop universalistic institutions that transcend ethnic or racial divisions, that actively promote tolerance and understanding, and that promote classifications that transcend the divisions. The Catholic church could have played this role in Rwanda, had it not been riven by the same ethnic cleavages as Rwandan society. Promotion of a common language in countries like Tanzania has also promoted transcendent national identity. This search for common ground is vital to early prevention of genocide.

2. SYMBOLIZATION: We give names or other symbols to the classifications. We name people “Jews” or “Gypsies”, or distinguish them by colors or dress; and apply the symbols to members of groups. Classification and symbolization are universally human and do not necessarily result in genocide unless they lead to the next stage, dehumanization. When combined with hatred, symbols may be forced upon unwilling members of pariah groups: the yellow star for Jews under Nazi rule, the blue scarf for people from the Eastern Zone in Khmer Rouge Cambodia. To combat symbolization, hate symbols can be legally forbidden (swastikas) as can hate speech. Group marking like gang clothing or tribal scarring can be outlawed, as well. The problem is that legal limitations will fail if unsupported by popular cultural enforcement. Though Hutu and Tutsi were forbidden words in Burundi until the 1980’s, code-words replaced them. If widely supported, however, denial of symbolization can be powerful, as it was in Bulgaria, where the government refused to supply enough yellow badges and at least eighty percent of Jews did not wear them, depriving the yellow star of its significance as a Nazi symbol for Jews.

3. DEHUMANIZATION: One group denies the humanity of the other group. Members of it are equated with animals, vermin, insects or diseases. Dehumanization overcomes the normal human revulsion against murder. At this stage, hate propaganda in print and on hate radios is used to vilify the victim group. In combating this dehumanization, incitement to genocide should not be confused with protected speech. Genocidal societies lack constitutional protection for countervailing speech, and should be treated differently than democracies. Local and international leaders should condemn the use of hate speech and make it culturally unacceptable. Leaders who incite genocide should be banned from international travel and have their foreign finances frozen. Hate radio stations should be shut down, and hate propaganda banned. Hate crimes and atrocities should be promptly punished.

4. ORGANIZATION: Genocide is always organized, usually by the state, often using militias to provide deniability of state responsibility (the Janjaweed in Darfur.) Sometimes organization is informal (Hindu mobs led by local RSS militants) or decentralized (terrorist groups.) Special army units or militias are often trained and armed. Plans are made for genocidal killings. To combat this stage, membership in these militias should be outlawed. Their leaders should be denied visas for foreign travel. The U.N. should impose arms embargoes on governments and citizens of countries involved in genocidal massacres, and create commissions to investigate violations, as was done in post-genocide Rwanda.

5. POLARIZATION: Extremists drive the groups apart. Hate groups broadcast polarizing propaganda. Laws may forbid intermarriage or social interaction. Extremist terrorism targets moderates, intimidating and silencing the center. Moderates from the perpetrators’ own group are most able to stop genocide, so are the first to be arrested and killed. Prevention may mean security protection for moderate leaders or assistance to human rights groups. Assets of extremists may be seized, and visas for international travel denied to them. Coups d’état by extremists should be opposed by international sanctions.

6. PREPARATION: Victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious identity. Death lists are drawn up. Members of victim groups are forced to wear identifying symbols. Their property is expropriated. They are often segregated into ghettoes, deported into concentration camps, or confined to a famine-struck region and starved. At this stage, a Genocide Emergency must be declared. If the political will of the great powers, regional alliances, or the U.N. Security Council can be mobilized, armed international intervention should be prepared, or heavy assistance provided to the victim group to prepare for its self-defense. Otherwise, at least humanitarian assistance should be organized by the U.N. and private relief groups for the inevitable tide of refugees to come.

7. EXTERMINATION begins, and quickly becomes the mass killing legally called “genocide.” It is “extermination” to the killers because they do not believe their victims to be fully human. When it is sponsored by the state, the armed forces often work with militias to do the killing. Sometimes the genocide results in revenge killings by groups against each other, creating the downward whirlpool-like cycle of bilateral genocide (as in Burundi). At this stage, only rapid and overwhelming armed intervention can stop genocide. Real safe areas or refugee escape corridors should be established with heavily armed international protection. (An unsafe “safe” area is worse than none at all.) The U.N. Standing High Readiness Brigade, EU Rapid Response Force, or regional forces — should be authorized to act by the U.N. Security Council if the genocide is small. For larger interventions, a multilateral force authorized by the U.N. should intervene. If the U.N. is paralyzed, regional alliances must act. It is time to recognize that the international responsibility to protect transcends the narrow interests of individual nation states. If strong nations will not provide troops to intervene directly, they should provide the airlift, equipment, and financial means necessary for regional states to intervene.

8. DENIAL is the eighth stage that always follows a genocide. It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies, try to cover up the evidence and intimidate the witnesses. They deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims. They block investigations of the crimes, and continue to govern until driven from power by force, when they flee into exile. There they remain with impunity, like Pol Pot or Idi Amin, unless they are captured and a tribunal is established to try them. The response to denial is punishment by an international tribunal or national courts. There the evidence can be heard, and the perpetrators punished. Tribunals like the Yugoslav or Rwanda Tribunals, or an international tribunal to try the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, or an International Criminal Court may not deter the worst genocidal killers. But with the political will to arrest and prosecute them, some may be brought to justice.

>> Chanting “Death to Arabs,” hundreds of Beitar soccer fans crowded into a mall in Jerusalem after their team won a match …

Jewish citizens of the Jewish state celebrate a soccer team’s win by chanting “Death to Arabs”. Wow. Well, it’s a good thing they weren’t asking for justice + peace, ’cause that’s the same as a declaration of eternal war!

Somewhat off-topic, but instructive as to the mindset of of those teaching the youth of Israel – from an op-ed in Haaretz by Dr. Amiel Ungar, a professor of political science:

“The success of Iron Dome was indeed heartening, and the system will definitely reduce casualties and ensure the survivability of forces and infrastructures in a general war. Missile intercepts, and a resilient rear front cannot provide victory, however; only the infliction of unbearable damage to the enemy can accomplish this. Israel unfortunately did not achieve or even aspire to victory.”

THE INFLICTION OF UNBEARABLE DAMAGE!!

What hope for reasonable, non-racist conduct from the next generation of Israelis?

Well, Im Tirtzu and department of Education are lamenting that many professors are anti-Zionist, like almost entire department of political science in Beer Sheva (BGU). So guys like Ungar are not the only voice in Israeli academia.

For some reasons hooligans prefer attending soccer matches than tennis matches or golf tournaments. For that reason, keeping their excesses in check is something that police and politicians care about in almost all places I heard about.

Mall security could lock the doors, order shops to lock the doors to stores and warn the rioters that they can all be arrested. Police should be there within 2-3 minutes. People exiting the mall should have their IDs checked. There exist civilized but decisive ways to deal with those problems that did not appear last week after all. Feeble reactions of mall security and total inaction of police really suggests sympathy with the rioters.

To paraphrase Prof. Ungar, Jerusalem police did not even aspire to victory.

Actually, it is also possible that Jerusalem police was totally baffled what to do. After all, it was a relatively harmless riot that should be treated (a) without tear gas (b) without rubber bullets (c) without skunk water (d) without sound grenades (e) without sharpshooters etc. Perhaps nobody prepared such a plan of action.

If any of security of the Mall were Arabs (and it is extremely likely they all were), if they lifted finger on any Jew, this riot would become really bloody, and the headlines in MSM would read: “Terrorist attacked Jew in a Shopping Mall in Jerusalem”.
or ” Brave shoppers overwhelmed the Terrorist attacking 18 year old boys in Jerusalem” or “Hamas renews Terrorist Attacks on civilians in shopping Malls in Israel.”

“Poor working class uneducated Mizrahim have the most to lose from peace unless they develop some class consciousness and stand with the Palestinians.”

But, but Seafoid, if that were true, it would mean that the elite of Zionism and the Jewish community which suports it, took advantage of other, not as elite Jews. It means that the relationship between them was conditioned by perceived race and ethnicity, and this was not overcome by their common religion and the ZIonist project. Can such a thing really be possible? Jews, acting like anybody else?

Of course hooligans in every other country are aggressives. And some of them racist. But in Germany, England or Italy, when one of them shows his racism openly, he gets shunned by sensible folks. The club makes a big gesture and at the next game, fans have big signs protesting the racist in their midst.

Why isn’t that the case in Israel? I think because too many Jews still have a blind spot for their own racism. They think their racism is justified, because the world is so much more racist than themselves (in their own mind, that is).

This attitude is going to change, inevitably, with honest and intelligent Jews like Avraham Burg identifying the racist strain in their community. But how many non-Jews need to endure this crap until all Jews are finally out of their tribal mind-prison?

Exactly. Clubs can be thrown out of competitions, fined and docked points (and are). Hilariously, in 2006, Israel joined Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE), a network set up to counter racism in football. The fact that Israeli is not in Europe and does nothing about racism is only another example of its wish to sign up to standards which it has no intention of following, in order to pose as a ‘modern’ state.

Being as no one was hospitalized, I am not sure whether the description of the hooligans “beating the crap out of people” is an accurate one. Regardless, your description of the Beitar fans being immune to arrest is inaccurate, to say the least:

The day Israel treats Jewish offenders against Arab victims equally is the day the occupation ends and colonization ends. Until then, every report that says Israeli police or the Israeli government is “investigating” the incident is lip service.

The police frequently arrests people charged with violence (towards Arabs or Jews), as evident by the links I’ve provided. Can you empirically show that violence towards Arabs is ignored by the police?

Just fresh from three hours ago: Israeli Chief of police says – “Hooligans will be located and put on trial”

So the incident happened last Monday and its taken the Chief of Police an entire week to state that the police plan to prosecute the offenders, if they find them? And you want us to be impressed with this? If the police had actually bothered to show up 30 minutes earlier they wouldn’t have to “locate” the “hooligans”, they could have arrested them on the spot. But I suppose that would have been asking too much to have them actually doing their job.

Just fresh from three hours ago: Israeli Chief of police says – “Hooligans will be located and put on trial”

According to a report in yesterday’s Haaretz, the Jerusalem police said that they would investigate the possibility of indicting “participants on both sides”. This coincides with the response given by the Beitar administration that the incident was merely an argument that got out of hand, “with no racist basis”. Another source in Beitar said that the whole thing started when one of the mall’s [Palestinian] workers “taunted and struck one of the fans”, whose pals then came to his defence. What an honourable bunch. Yallah Beitar!

Yes, the police screwed up, just like it screws up on many occasions, regardless of the victims being Arab. On the other hand, this particular screwup prompted a lot of media publicity which eventually forced the chief of police into action.

“Izik is so deeply and fanatically racist”
It’s always mature and constructive to start a response with a baseless ad-hominem attack. It seems to me that I am not the one afflicted with stigmatization of an entire people.

“that he thinks that when Israeli Jews say they will follow the law and apply it fairly towards Arabs, that THAT is exemplary.”

Nope. Never said that. I don’t think it’s “exemplary”. Why do you lie about my views?
Annie said that the attackers have impunity and suggested that previous attacks were also ignored – she did not provide references.
I, on the other hand, provided references about previous attacks and the police response to them as well as the police response to this attack.

Can you empirically show that violence towards Arabs is ignored by the police?

Of course. The State of Israel has had several blue ribbon commissions which have reported on the problem. The Karp Commission Report concluded that cases involving violent attacks on Palestinians carried out by Israeli settlers were routinely closed without conducting any investigations. http://www.palestine-studies.org/books.aspx?id=337&href=details

The State Commission of Inquiry on the Massacre at the Cave of the Patriarchs came to exactly the same conclusion as the authors at +972 Magazine:

The Police also believed that it had no obligation to investigate unless the victim of the crime personally filed a complaint, and that a complaint filed by a soldier who witnessed the crime, for example, was not sufficient. This approach is contrary to the one accepted under our law regarding the manner of opening an investigation, as it finds expression in the Criminal Procedures Law (Consolidated Version), 5742 – 1982, and is also contrary to common sense, particularly in circumstances in which there is reason to assume that the victim fears filing a complaint with the police. This approach caused frustration and provided a distorted picture of the method of law enforcement, both among soldiers who filed complaints as eye-witnesses to crimes, and among the potential complainants, tarnishing the image of the military government as the body responsible for law enforcement. It also constituted a sort of voluntary abdication of effective control on the ground.

The Or Commission found cases where failures in investigation bordered on ethical irregularities and that in many cases investigations regarding the discharging of a weapon did not take place. They recommended that the police conduct their own internal investigation of the 12 Palestinian shooting deaths, but nothing was done for over a year. Finally the families of the victims were told to exhume the bodies and have autopsies performed. Four years later the cases were closed and no charges resulted. http://liveweb.archive.org/http://www.haaretz.com/news/role-of-the-public-security-ministry-1.98879

Then there are always the reports of Judges Dugard and Goldstone who reported on the failures of the Israeli authorities to investigate or prosecute the crimes Israelis citizens commit against the Palestinians.

Oh, would that Mondoweiss would apply the “JSF standard” for comments: “No liars, timewasters, or bigots” One or two warnings, and boom, you’re gone.

On the other hand, watching the facts roll in like a ton of bricks and burying the hasbaracthcniks is always gratifying. And I could be mistaken, but it looks to me as if the most egregious comments from Zionists are where I see new “handles” for the first time. That is, these egregious comments motivate people to write their first comment.

Note to MW: by default, by intuition and by reflex, the post should note that this mall is in “West-Jerusalem”. That is, colonised but not occupied.

That’s almost correct. Jerusalem was part of Palestine and has not become part of any of the successor states. Under the terms of the 1949 Armistice Agreement, the permanent status of Jerusalem can only be determined by mutual agreement after a fresh round of negotiations. That means that west Jerusalem is under a regime of armistice occupation, while east Jerusalem is under a regime of belligerent occupation.

“‘Death to Jews’ in Paris 1890s spurred Herzl [to create a movement to relocate all Jews from Europe]”
ummm…that seems to be the idea behind these attacks, no?
To make all Arabs leave the land of Israel/Palestine.

To be honest, with Toulouse , missile attacks, and 24/7 incitement, I’d say the Israelis as a whole have done a great effort in restraining hooligans and violent criminal elements in their society. Just recall how historically Americans treated rebellious slaves or Japanese citizens, or while abroad, murdered civilians as part of the war effort (Hiroshima, Dresden, uncountable MaiLais as in the recent murder rampage by reportedly several soldiers in Afghan.

Indeed its not Israelis I fear so much for anti Muslim pogroms, as much as I do neocon funded elements in the USA. Take for example the anti shariah averted pogrom in Orange county. a truly orwellian hate minute captured on tape.

should be posted here, and with an explanation of the funding sources of the anti shariah program.

BTW the Israeli danger is not from hooliganism so much (though sometimes it becomes Nakba like murderous violence), but the adoption of a one state solution being pushed by Ali A, and his friends at Foreign Policy mag. But it wont be implemented as a bi national state, but as a Jewish state with the expulsion of the Arabs to Jordan and Egypt who will annex Gaza and parts of the West Bank in return for a final “Peace”.

“BTW the Israeli danger is not from hooliganism so much (though sometimes it becomes Nakba like murderous violence), but the adoption of a one state solution being pushed by Ali A, and his friends at Foreign Policy mag. ”

Bilal, Ali’s a Palestinian, are you? You sound a lot like eee that used to justify or water down Israel’s evils by comparing them to bigger American ones as you are doing here.

Isreal is a country that rely’s on lies to maintain its exsistance. One of the biggest lies perpertrated by the state of Isreal is that jews are the only semites on this planet. Unfortunately, there are semites in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, there are even semites in Iraq. The term ‘anti-sematic’ is non-descriptive. You should use ‘anti-Isreal’ or anti-jewish’.

The reason why the Isreal/Palestine conflict has world-wide significance is that all the so-called Islamic extremist groups use the treatment of the Palestinians to inspire and recruit members. When bin-Laden declared war on the USA he mentioned the Palestinian situation about 10 times. Isreal’s treatment of the Palestinians is one of the main driving forces of Islamic extremism.

As we discussed, it is not the behavior of soccer fans that is peculiar in that affair, because sadly, soccer ultras are what they are, but of the police, and top Israeli police officials ordered investigation of Jerusalem police. Racism of some members of Jerusalem police was documented, but this was a black blot on the image of efficient security that Israel maintains. Did everybody in respective police stations got drunk to celebrate a rare win of Jerusalem team and they needed 30 minutes to round up few sober individuals to perform an action?

Actually, this particular band of soccer fans will probably be derided on the internet by fans of other teams for their lame riot. But that does not mean that Israel has a shortage of dangerous hooligans. Compare French statistics of anti-Semitic incidents with stats of “price tag” attacks. I am lazy tonight, but my impression is that incidence of racist hooliganism among settler population is 10-fold of what is tabulated for Muslim population of France, per capita. Additionally, one can qualify significant portion of IDF activity as hooliganism.

By the way, some wondered how is it physically possible for 20 people to beat up a single person, and actually without grave consequences. During my sheltered youth I was once a victim of a non-vicious attack. As I was bicycling, 5 boys approached me from the opposite direction and each smacked me on the head, which is a school yard “domination behavior” in those parts. Clearly, the “mall mob” was not as innocent, but they were not out there to kill or maim but to humiliate and dominate. Additionally, they were not total morons, but kind of trying what they can get away with.

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